[PLUG-TALK] Spreadsheet Comparisons

[Russell Senior]

>>>>> "Rich" == Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> writes:

Rich>    While I use only linux, my clients use only Microsoft. One
Rich> client sends me data in humongous Excel spreadsheets (when the
Rich> only tool you have is a hammer ...). Well, the first time that
Rich> was OK although it took me a week to extract, transform, and
Rich> load the data in a database table. All 46K rows.

Rich>    Now he sent the most current version with the latest
Rich> data. Unfortunately, what I have is not the additional data but
Rich> the entire enhanced spreadsheet.  Sigh.

Rich>    I've saved copies as LibreOffice .ods files, and deleted the
Rich> 33 sheets of graphs so I have only the data sheet, but each one
Rich> is about 280 columns by 200 rows. What I need to do is extract
Rich> from the latest version only those data not present in the
Rich> original version, and I'm open to suggestions on how to proceed
Rich> in the least painful way.

Export both into tab-delimited ASCII files, sort each, compare with
diff or wdiff.  If the new one is a strict superset of the old, just
use the new one.  If the old entries have been modified, diff should
show where/how.

Why is this on plug-talk?


-- 
Russell Senior, President
russell at personaltelco.net